I don’t recall the time, but we finally arrived at the pier at the Charleston Naval Base. We moored starboard side to, bow out at one of the southernmost piers.

The trip up the channel revealed a flattened landscape, the vegetation stripped away along the shores, leaving an eerie feeling for us. The temporary range markers looked like toy replicas of the permanent ones we had been so used to “riding” in and out of port, but they were all there and usable.

The arrival pierside wasn’t greeted with the families and friends. It was the DESRON staff personnel to get us ready for the work effort to help restore Charleston at several levels.

Obviously, we had to make some decision. The work force had a lot of their minds, after being gone since the Monday and now their personal lives were first and foremost in their minds. Our base was decimated, and then the overall civilian community needed help. Beyond our ability to control the assignments, we were tasked with providing working parties men for the Naval Station, the Naval Weapons Station, and the local Red Cross. So, the priorities came…and came, and came. Oh, and the other non-negotiable was factored in: Deployment to the Middle East for convoy escort duty….and did I mention a minor event know as “Change of Command?”

One of those “details” of life at sea now came to the forefront: Water. The base couldn’t provide it. Sounds like not too much of a big deal, as you know we make our own water, but, there are these sticky things called “sanitation regulations.” For health reasons, we do not make water within 3 NM of land. It’s a basic rule to ensure we don’t have the run off from the land, carrying the entrained refuse of humanity, to get into our source of drinking water. Now we were well within that limit, and up a major river. The decision: Fire up the evaporators and “super-chlorinate” the water. That was also a part of the regulations, in the event you ended up in a situation like this, or in some body of water that indicated it may be more polluted than it should be.

Power? Not a problem. Ship’s run their generators alongside the piers all the time.

The takeaway here? The crew, while “in port, homeport,” had a wide variety of extra duties to conduct, well above and beyond any normal set of circumstances. Besides all the working parties, and the routine work that had to necessarily continue, we also were “steaming,” and not “Cold Iron,” which required a more extensively manned inport watchbill. Add to this the family issues, and the uncertainy as to when any of this might return to the “normal” level of Naval chaos we had become accustomed to and comfortable with.

The crew, rolled up their sleeves and got to work, day and night. During the day, they dutifully cleaned debris on our base and the other other government facilities, and those in the community as assigned. When they were done for the day, and not assigned to the duty section, they were out lending a hand to their shipmates families, and their neighbors. The “unattached” crew members were especially helpful, as they had the time, but they willingly helped as they could.

So were were home, in our wrecked homeport, and we had our work cut out for us.

My car? I wouldn’t have the opportunity to get out to James Island to see it. I had a crew to keep running, and a car was not necessary for this, and besides, it wasn’t able to be driven from the description.

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We awoke this morning and got to business. That of still working on what pre-deployment preparations we could do. Some of the energy went towards figuring out the alternate methods we would have to use to accomplish this underway commitment, regardless of where we were moored stateside.

Some of the crew had arranged to rent cars and head for Charleston. We assisted in that process also, particularly for the ones who had destroyed homes to handle up north.

By afternoon, the entire playing field changed. We received orders to get underway and return to Charleston. It turns out that between the Charleston Pilots Association, the Navy (using the minesweepers in Charleston) and I believe the Coast and Geodesic Service, had conducted several surveys of the navigational channel, and the Coast Guard had installed temporary buoys and range markers, all in a 5 day time frame. The channel had not been affected and remained as before.

Preps to get underway, again, but now getting us closer to, and not further from home. The mood improved.The Crucible full

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This morning, back then, we set for and executed our 4th in a row unplanned sea and anchor details, arriving in Mayport. I don’t recall the order, but we were part of a group of about 4-5 other vessels sent south.

What I do recall are two specific circumstances of the day. The first was seeing our HSL-44 Detachment crew standing on the pier to greet us, intermingled with so many others. There were pallets of supplies sitting there, having been collected by our on and off shipmates and their families and friends, all to be taken back to Charleston at some point in the future. While there had been many a day when surface sailors and their embarked aviation crews would like to keep separate, while stuck together, this day wasn’t one of them. As is common with the team spirit of Americans in all our disasters, the big picture merges us into one entity to take care of the problems we face. After we were moored, the supplies of water, diapers, canned food, cleaning supplies, etc, were craned aboard and staged in the empty helo hangers.

The other event of the day is one I have to report on hearsay: The Chief Staff Officer, upon us putting the brow down and declaring it secured, scampered aboard and went to see Captain Johnson. The CSO gave a little bit of a butt chewing to my CO, but then CDR Johnson had his turn to speak. The issue? It seemed that on the previous Wednesday morning there had been a meeting of the base commanders. At the meeting it was noted that USS CARR was inport already for storm evasion. Some direction about us was issued, I believe by the Base Commander, which I recall the Commodore of DESRON 8 rogered for. Shortly thereafter, they looked out the big picture window of the office towards our berth on the NE side of the basin, to see a bare slip. Jaw(s) dropped and the embarrassment factor increased all of a sudden, which then became a burr under the Commodore’s saddle. The CSO was the messenger to let my CO know he had done something wrong. Now Wade Johnson stated his defense: ON the evening of the prior Tuesday, he had contacted the CDS8 Duty Officer. He requested permission to get underway, and was granted same, with a promise from the Duty Officer, a chief petty officer, that the base authorities would be notified to provide us tugs, line handlers and a pilot to depart. The CO went on to indicate, professionally, that he had followed the normal chain of command, and also, that he was not in possession of the Commodore’s home phone number in any case, making it impossible to contact the Commander directly anyhow. He indicated to me that he followed with an obvious point: The Duty Officer failed to breif the rest of the staff on Wednesday morning, something he had no control over. That ended that.

The day went on, with some certainty in the uncertainty, as the crew now made their way to the phones on the base to try and call home.

We spent most all day at anchor, the mood still quiet. The news on the TVs still just more of the same – lots of wreckage, and then more.

Side note: About this time, they tended to show a shot taken from a news helo flying the length of Folly Island. There was house after beach house only marked by the foundation and piles of construction material rubble. Except one house. It had a fewe missing shingles, but was otherwise unaffected by any visible damage. It turns out, later on, the secret was revealed: When the house was built, the owner had every material “upsized” one increment. 1/2 in plywood was 3/4 in, 2x4s were replaced with 2x6s in the plans. Moral of the story: If the construction code was for 120MPH (I think that was the then current standard, then one size up of everything would stand over 150MPH storms.

Anyhow, during the day, the ships that had sortied from Charleston began to return, going to the anchorages as assigned by SOPA (senior Officer Present Afloat) – Most likely COMCRUDESGRU TWO. It became apparent the port was going to be closed and we couldn’t just hang around a decimated port. We were directed, in groups to head to other ports, in our case, Mayport.

Once more, the getting underway checklist was broken out and the Ship prepared with little other than professional communications required, to get underway/ We would sail through the night to get there.

I know, this story reminds you of “Castaway,” but trust me, it was a time of numbness for many, much like for Tom Hanks character let on a deserted island for years.

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The day was long. Longer still because of the heavy emotional burden. Here was a ship full of people who always got the job done, sitting mere miles from a job worth doing, for self, for family, for shipmates, for just someone who needed help, and we were not allowed to go there. Additionally, were weren’t being told to go anywhere else, either. The sky, once again the brilliant blue we had seen near Miami the day before, and behind the many storms we had collective seen at sea among the lot of us. The waves were essentially non-existent, too.

The bare essentials of the routine for being anchored, and life aboard a ship continued, but mostly people stood on deck, staring at the devastated beach, or on the signal bridge, waiting for a turn to scan the beach nearby. If below decks, they were in the berthing compartments, watching the news on over the air TV.

Even the unmarried sailors and officers had a load on their minds, foremost for most was the status of their vehicles parked at the piers, not far from the water’s edge in most cases. Not having someone to drop you off at the pier on the day you sail is the condition that got them to that state of mind.

So as we swing at the anchor, in limbo, the mood was quiet, pensive and tense.

Late in the afternoon, the Bridge-to-Bridge VHF radio spoke a familiar voice, that of Chief Petty Officer Steve Hatherly. Just this morning, he had climbed aboard a zodiac and headed into the Coast Guard Station, which was at the tip of the Charleston Peninsula, and now he was calling us from the Naval Station, several miles away, across a city without power or public transportation at the moment. Steve was always the resourceful one, and to this day, I never have found out how he did it, but at that moment, we didn’t care. I recall a large number of people crowding the bridge near the Captain’s Chair, listening intently as Chief Hatherly read off the list of who he had contacted, providing status of each family. He had managed to reach at least 3/4 of the people listed on the Alpha roster, all within a work day’s period, in the middle of the devastation.

I recall three homes of families of the crew were uninhabitable, but all of them were safe with neighbors or other families of the crew. Smiles and sighs of relief began to break out. He finally was about to wrap up his report, and he said to let the Doc (HMC Mentzer) that the windows of his van had blown out due to the storm’s over-pressure, but it was otherwise fine. Then he said “I have bad news for the XO.” It was quiet on the Bridge. He then said “A tree fell on his RX-7.” It had been parked at the Mother-in-Law’s house for that trip to sea, as my family had moved in anticipation of orders following the upcoming deployment. Deployment you say? Yes, in just 40 days, we were scheduled to sail for the Persian Gulf, and our homeport was pretty much destroyed.

We ate chow that evening, knowing a little more of the conditions ashore, but still without plans. The Charleston ships that had sortied, still were no where near getting back, having run far to the north east for safety. We turned in, not knowing what the next day would bring.

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Having steamed all day and night in the wake of Hugo, we arrived and sun up off the coast of Charleston. We selected an anchorage and headed there, being the first Navy ship back. We had been preceded by a Coast Guard Cutter, a converted Navy salvage ship, skippered by a classmate of mine from the Naval War College.

We did not have permission to enter port. The shortest distance the buoys had shifted was about 1/2 a nautical mile. Most all of the range markers had been destroyed. The larger concern is that the channel had shifted with the push of the storm going through the area, rendering it unsafe for transit to the Naval Base up the Cooper River. The sea floor in the vicinity of Charleston Harbor is mostly fine silt, so that fear was real.

What did we know? For one, the crew, about 1/2 of the of the 189, had families ashore. What we didn’t know is how they were. We knew it had been a devastating storm, as we could plainly see the Ben Sawyer turntable bridge from Mt Pleasant sitting at a god awful angle into the sky from our vantage point jsut off the shore. With the “Big Eyes,” the large binoculars on the Signal Bridge, you got a better idea of the almost complete devastation of the houses on the beach along the Isle of Palms.

With our external TV antenna, we began picking up news reports from the local stations, as they came back on the air. I recall just staring at one reporter, looking like he was stnding in Francis Marion Forest, saying “I’m standing on (can’t recall the main road, but it was one of the main roads in Charleston)….” I was mesmerized by the thick background of pine branches behind him.

It was quiet walking the decks. Not much work was being done, as our minds were obviously focused on the unknown.

The Captain called me to the Bridge. The Coast Guard cutter was sending a zodiac boat into the Coast Guard Station, and asked if we wanted to put some ashore. He told me to get Chief Hatherly, and an “alpha” roster (a recall list, with the home names and addresses of the crew, as well as spouse and children’s names). Order the CO gave to STGC Hatherly: “Take the roster and do the right thing. Grab a toothbrush and get to the Quarterdeck.” Off Steve went. About 10 minutes later, he was climbing down the Jacob’s ladder to the zodiac alongside.

It was to be a long day of not knowing much.

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About noon on this day 19 years ago, we were abeam Miami and the weather was exceptionally excellent, as it is behind a major storm. The sky brilliantly blue, the sea darker, and the waves very small.

Hugo was now a Category 4, about 240 miles SE of Charelston, SC, our homeport. Hugo was about 340 miles NE of us. The CO and I decided to turn north and begin to follow the storm. At that location, when we decided, our track to the sea buoy off Charleston was 000^oT, due north.

The journey home then began with a wide turn in the sea traffic, and we slowed, taking one engine offline. Having once before followed a strom home to homeport (Guillermo in the Pacific in 1979), I knew it was not wise to run right up behind it and assume you knew here it was headed.

Hugo had increased dramatically in strength, having pulled in the energy off the hot water of the Gulf Stream, as it had crossed in in the night, and had now set it’s sights on the low country Carolina area. It was heading that direction at about 19 mph. The exact landfall was still a question.

We went about our duties, minus a heavy dose of specific Navy related tasks. We were just mariners on the way home, with the thoughts and fears about our family and friends in the path of the storm.

The ships in Charelston had sortied, heading to the NE, “crossing the T” of the storm. I later heard more details, which I will discuss in this story chonologically.

The day had pretty much wrapped up. Yes, about this time. We were out of homeport, supposed to be out at sea and really had no plans, so work like we would have been doing, had we been at sea went on this day. Besides, a major storm was approaching, so there was some planning going on.

About 2200 (10PM), which was also Taps in the daily routine, the CO phoned me and said “XO, I’m nervous. You get the ship ready to get underway and I’ll get permission to sail.” My tasking was established and I rounded up the department heads. The Ship came back to life as all hands went through their duties.

Shortly afterwards, the CO told me we had been granted permission to get underway by the COMDESRON 8 Duty Officer, who had also notified the Naval Station to get us tugs and a pilot to return to sea.

Within moments of midnight, the CARR pulled away from the quay wall and made the turn out the short channel to enter then St James River and head for the sea. That trip, a delightful one, being the shortest sea and anchor detail, even at night was handled professionally. When we got to the Sea Buoy, we kept both LM2500 main engines on line, an abnormal procedure, but we wanted the speed. The lee helm was directed to advance the throttle to flank speed as we also executed a turn due south to make a run for the Strait of Florida.

Hugo had not yet settled on where it would strike, but we knew heading to the north east would have us “crossing the T” of the storm, and it was a big one. In addition, we’d end up on the “dangerous” side of the storm, and if it recurved, following the hot water of the Gulf Stream, we’d have to run far to the East, and then south, circumnavigating the entire weather phenomena. Taking the course we did also had it’s risk. like getting trapped between land and the high winds, but our plan was to get south fast to knowing there was less of a chance the storm, being where it was then, or turning to a south western course.

The night was quiet, but tense, as the we plotted Hugo and rode a port quartering sea, feeling ourselves surfing down the large wave fronts.

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Come on…go with me there…this is a shameless effort to get lots of Lizard hits, or…could it be BREAKING NEWS?

Over four years ago, in the BR (Before Rathergate) era of Little Green Footballs (hereinafter referred to as “LGF”), I regularly read the Blogging of Charles, and the comments sections. Back then, you could actually read the entire comments section in a single session and not have to take two bathroom breaks and stop to have one meal, and somehow do your work without interrupting your sleep.

Then…CBS and Dan Rather tried to “rather” not have President Bush re-elected. Charles caught them in their own effort to change the will of the people and, as a result, readership (and comments) climbed through the roof of the sitemetering software. Comments ran in to the many hundreds on any particular post, and ones that were part of a dialog between commenters became more difficult to follow, sometime causing readers to exacerbate their repetitive stress injuries with scrolling up and down several screens, just to follow the discussion.

The best part of LGF was reading “news” and not hearing it for 3-4 days in the dinosaur media. It was like a secret window into what was really happening in the world! I often chuckled, even when the conservative talk show hosts discussed such “news” and were “time late.” Charles, I thought, had developed a most excellent pipeline of data to keep us at the forefront of all that was fit to read.  Whatever he was doing, he was running ahead of the pack so far they didn’t konw how far ahead hes was.

Then, readers would post interesting links in their comments. I did to. Charles, would sometimes pick them up and create entire posts of them, and the depositor would gain world wide recognition via the “hat tip” (or “h/t” for short) method.

The beauty of this system was those readers who had professional, academic, or significant hands on experience would add to the posts, either with confirmation, clarity, or calling a “line” for what it was. And, guess what? Charles now had a “Lizard Army” as “subject matter experts” at his beck and call. He addicted us….and we were eager to help out, making the cutting edge, the very finest.

It was exciting time, when the LGF site became a hotbed of citizen journalist who almost always skunked “the PROFESSIONALS!” at the labor for which “they” had the pieces of lambskin saying they could change the world, while we common working people, how dare was be audacious in pointing out they had it wrong?  We did…byt the hundreds, then thousands of posts.  A unique place, this LGF site became, with debunking of steel not melting, photoshopped picutres and the Green Helmet Guy from Pallywood.

But, earlier this year, something changed.  Charles figured out (I may be able to recreate the 1967 memo of it, too) that he could get blogger to scour the web and local news sources and then post hundreds of links a day, and all he had to do was sedate us readers with such trivial thinks like rounded corners on the log in input boxes and Ajaxified comments sections.  He began to spend less time being the guy who found the breaking news, and subtly he left that task to the “lizards.”  We came and multiplier.  We hammer the bandwidth with more and more and more links.

The squirrels…Oh, THE HUMANITY!  We’re fortunate PETA hasn’t mounted a major full frontal assault on the server farm, for the findings of the legless creatures would certainly tear our hearts apart.   Zombie might even have to go and capture the events to post digitally…

It used to be the routine, for an east coast resident like myself, to anxiously await about 11:30AM each day, to begin lunch early and see what the “new” day brought at LGF, from then until the mid-evening, the pages filled with amazing storied of stupid Democrat ideas, malfeasance of the MSM, how some blogger had trumped the people too pure to mingle with people who might actually have life experience to get the facts straight…but, als, it is not to be any longer.

Charles, surrounded by tomes discusing PHP, SQL, AJAX,  can barely managed an “Open Post”post byt 12:30 Eastern now.  Sometimes it’s later.  It is akin to the mom tossing open the back door and hollaring at all the kids to “get out there and play! The sun is shining and you need fresh air!  DON’TYOUDAREKILLEACHOTHEREITHER!” as she settles in to watching the afternoon soaps  With her tray of bon bons, she parks for a few hours of aimless “entertainment.”

Lizards now send in links and they maybe get a post, 1 out of every 40-50 or so, maybe a day later than the link input, and not even a freaking “H/T” to be found anymore.

But what are we to do?  Charles has seduced us into diligently, without pay, benefits, or the most awesome “H/T: XXXXXX” recognition, submitting links from about the globe, to feed his insatiable desire to rule an empire, the one to overtake the every degrading MSM.  He has constructed a tools, unlike any other, that mesmerizes us into a stupified state, but needing more.

I say Charles has stepped over the line!  He needs to be brought forward on charges of willfully, and by conspiratorial methods, of violating Blogger Labor Laws!

Say it wth me:  “I WILL NOT BE BOUGHT BY ICONIC REDESIGN!”

Oh, heck, if you’re read this far, I just had fun with this.  In four some years, LGF has become something special.  The best part is, it’s unique and he owes the development to no one, so they can’t come along and reclaim their product.

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Tuesday morning began in with the standard shipboard routine. Reveille, breakfast for the crew, muster for instruction and inspection, Officer’s Call and turn to, commence Ship’s work.

On the other hand, it was not routine, as we couldn’t fulfill our assigned duty of providing deck services for HSL-44. Later in the morning, the CO got us working to enter port at Naval Station Mayport. With permission, we moored that afternoon on the quay wall at the north east side of the basin, starboard side to. The Chief Staff Officer of Destroyer Squadron 8, offering us a hand since this wasn’t our homeport.

The reason for the circumstances? Hurricane Hugo, which was about 700 miles SE of Mayport, with 110 mph of wind, generally headed somewhere towards the East Coast.

A meeting on the base in the afternoon yielded a decision by the Naval Station Commander, a helo pilot by trade, that there would be no sortie for storm avoidance. His determination was made on the capability of the basin to take up to 60 mph of winds.

That decision didn’t sit well with my CO.

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